Bradley Corona

Brad Corona is a Managing Director at Vertical Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley–based early-stage venture firm founded in 2015 by Dave Schwab that invests exclusively in technology companies targeting specific industry verticals. Unlike his partners, who come from engineering and science backgrounds, Corona's roots are in finance. He spent roughly six years in investment banking at Jefferies, working in the Financial Sponsors and Healthcare groups, and holds a BA in Business Economics from Brown University.

Before joining VVP, Corona co-founded an e-commerce company and worked as an early- and growth-stage investor alongside several family offices. He met the VVP partners in the firm's earliest days, came on as a venture partner in 2015, and joined full-time in early 2016. He is described as having roughly 14 years of combined investment, operating, and corporate-advisory experience spanning investment banking, entrepreneurship, and early-stage investing.

In his current role, Corona focuses on what he calls "industries technology reached last, or neglected entirely," evaluating product, service, and outcome-based business models with particular attention to how AI now makes previously unfeasible approaches viable. Beyond investing, he builds and maintains the internal AI systems the firm runs on — covering sourcing, diligence, portfolio intelligence, and research infrastructure. He is based out of the firm's San Diego (Solana Beach) office.

• Stage: Pre-seed through Series A, leading or co-leading rounds in vertical enterprise-tech startups.
• Check size: Roughly $1.5M–$5.0M, most commonly around $3.0M; VVP operates from a fund reported near ~$51M.
• Sector lens: Vertical SaaS and enterprise software, with strong current emphasis on AI/generative technology, sales & CRM tooling, SMB software, marketplaces, and enterprise applications.
• What makes him say yes: In his words, opportunities in "industries technology reached last, or neglected entirely" — where software and AI can unlock product, service, or outcome-based models that weren't previously feasible.
• Firm philosophy: VVP invests exclusively in companies serving specific industry verticals rather than horizontal, general-purpose software.